In spring 2024, Ph.D. stu­dents at the Inter­na­tion­al Max Planck School for Intel­li­gent Sys­tems (imprs-is) had the oppor­tun­ity to take part in the RHET AI train­ing series on sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion for the second time.

The imprs-is was kick­star­ted in fall 2017 and is the offi­cial Ph.D. academy of the Cyber Val­ley. It is a joint pro­ject between the Uni­ver­sity of Tübin­gen and the Uni­ver­sity of Stut­tgart and aims to train out­stand­ing Ph.D. stu­dents in the field of intel­li­gent sys­tems and provide them with the best pos­sible sup­port in their research. The imprs-is is inter­na­tion­ally ori­ented and awards at least 70% of the places to non-Ger­man students.

As the RHET AI Cen­ter, one of our core con­cerns is to use our expert­ise to pro­mote good sci­entif­ic com­mu­nic­a­tion on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. Our Unit 3: “Com­mu­nic­at­ive Com­pet­ence” has set itself the task of impart­ing prac­tic­al skills in sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion to those who are closest to AI research: the sci­ent­ists them­selves. This motiv­a­tion also led to the col­lab­or­a­tion with imprs-is.

The young research­ers had the oppor­tun­ity to take part in two train­ing mod­ules, which could be atten­ded inde­pend­ently of each oth­er and took place on site at the Max Planck Insti­tute in Tübin­gen. Under the title “Found­a­tions of Sci­ence Com­mu­nic­a­tion”, Markus Gott­schling and Michael Pelzer impar­ted the basics to the work­shop par­ti­cipants. To this end, the pos­sib­il­it­ies, oppor­tun­it­ies and chal­lenges of sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion were first worked out togeth­er and the vari­ous dimen­sions in which sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion can take place were high­lighted. Ques­tions such as: “Who is my com­mu­nic­a­tion aimed at? What level of know­ledge does this tar­get group have? How can I con­vey my con­tent in an excit­ing way? What is the goal of my com­mu­nic­a­tion?” were iden­ti­fied as the basic build­ing blocks of suc­cess­ful sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion and put into prac­tice in ini­tial exercises.

In addi­tion to the the­or­et­ic­al basics, the work­shop also focused on train­ing the par­ti­cipants' present­a­tion skills. Loose exer­cises, video record­ings and indi­vidu­al feed­back allowed par­ti­cipants to work on their own present­a­tion skills. In addi­tion, all par­ti­cipants received fur­ther tips on how to improve their present­a­tion skills bey­ond the workshop.

The par­ti­cipants were also trained in visu­al­iz­a­tion and provided with prac­tic­al tips on the effect­ive use of visu­al media for sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion. By the end of the work­shop, every­one had developed an ini­tial pitch for the present­a­tion of a sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­ject, includ­ing a poster.

How­ever, the train­ing focused not only on teach­ing prac­tic­al and the­or­et­ic­al skills, but also on rais­ing the young sci­ent­ists' aware­ness of the cur­rent social dis­course sur­round­ing AI. After all, effect­ive and tar­geted sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion can only suc­ceed if sci­ence com­mu­nic­at­ors have an aware­ness of the ques­tions, con­cerns and fears that drive soci­ety on the top­ic of AI.

Led by Markus Gott­schling, the par­ti­cipants then had the oppor­tun­ity to plan their own sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­ject and receive sup­port in its devel­op­ment in a second work­shop mod­ule. Dur­ing the train­ing, the research­ers were able to con­cret­ize their own ideas and devel­op suit­able formats. Through input on cre­ativ­ity tech­niques and pro­duct­ive routines, the par­ti­cipants were able to devel­op an indi­vidu­al plan to put their pro­ject idea into practice.

We are delighted to have accom­pan­ied the research­ers on their way to con­fid­ent and suc­cess­ful sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion — and we ourselves have gained many insights through the sys­tem­at­ic eval­u­ation of the train­ing ses­sions, which we intend to imple­ment next year for the third edi­tion of the cooperation.